Yes, that's not even 'hacking' in the sense they're trying to present it. You don't need to be a top Russian computer programmer employed by the secret services to get into their email system in the way that it happened.

I think you are spot on there.

I do believe you're right. I vaguely recall a video where I heard him say that.

Yes I was thinking about this earlier and wondered whether Putin deliberately rejected American involvement after the last few months of being demonised by the American government.
It was also interesting how he said something about hoping relations will improve in the future with the new American administration.

This is why the way Obama is acting right now seems kind of stupid. I see no reason why relations with Russia can't thaw. They will be the enemy if you keep publicly maintaining that they are the enemy. It's not going to help anyone.
I truly believe that Trump winning has really messed up plans which were being made in the background regarding Russia. Something I really don't want to think about.

I would have thought that in the coming decades it would be important for America, Russia, and China to try to cooperate, not increase hostilities. Nobody really wants that, because the consequences could be horrific. The last thing you want is for any of these countries to encourage an increasing atmosphere of paranoia and fear against each other and to instead calm down the rhetoric.

Did they? EU leaders pointedly kept out of the referendum debates, as they knew it would be unhelpful.

so i assume you are equally unhappy about Trump's repeated criticisms over China's trade policies, its reclamation projects and building of new islands in the South China Sea and his contact with Taiwan which caused a rift because of the One China position and how sensitive they are about Taiwan still being part of China

Look, look over here, look, it's important. Nothing to see over there, look here.

I must have missed that,

Or how the clinton campaign rigged the dnc elections to favour themselves and tried to rig the rnc election to favour a moderate.

Or how the Clinton campaign actually chose Donald Trump.

i dont agree with it but i can almost understand why someone could think the DNC favouring Clinton could be construed as "rigging" the democrat primaries but what possible influence could the clinton campaign have had over the RNC and the republican primaries ?

especially when a moderate republican, if there is such a thing, would have destroyed Clinton in the GE

I can't see what was done that was so terrible it merited the ejection of 35 delegates.

How many delegates were ejected over the scandal of Russian atrocities in Aleppo? .....

Oh, hang on, there was no evidence for that either was there?

Hard for me to link you to the page on this silly kindle but take a look at the bbc homepage. There's a like to 12 things we learned from wikileaks. Notice I said tried to rig the rnc.

They also got the voting dates changed in many of the big Blue states that would directly favour clinton and let's not forget that whole debacle with the the head of the dnc

I couldn't imagine rubio or bush beating her in a head to head tbf.

Edit i think I got it the wrong way round they wanted to change the date of the rnc election so not to favour the moderate

the voting dates are agreed between both parties and at the time the dates were set sanders wasn't even a realistic candidate so how was that "rigging" ?

and again i repeat why on earth would the clinton campaign have wanted a moderate republican to stand against, that just makes no sense.

and the "whole debacle with the head of the DNC", which i assume you mean was the leaked question before one of the primary debates. do you really think that having prior knowledge of a question about lead poisoning on the water in Flint, Michigan was giving away a huge secret before a debate that was being held in Flint, Michigan specifically because of the scandal over lead poisoning in the water ?

come on be realistic and actually think about the relevance and impact of the things you are throwing out rather than just blindly accept clickbait without context

I edited my post sorry. I only have use of one eye atm so hard to read.

They wanted the date changed to not favour a moderate. Also ended the email something along the lines of friends of the clintons will be remembered

so what ?

we are talking about an e-mail that was sent in 2014 before the campaigns had even started

making a request about your preferred date is not rigging something, its asking for something you would like to have

just going to add one last thing on this topic tonight before i go and bang my head off a brick wall for a little while

this last exchange proves something i said earlier in the thread

the amount of damage that can be done to a political campaign, especially in this era of clickbait, by throwing out lots of little trivialities that can be taken completely out of context, is being shown here.

a simple request about the scheduling of a primary, made 2 years beforehand, before any of the candidates were even known on either side, before anyone could know the political climate would be at the time the primaries were being held and based on assumptions about what type of candidate might do well on Super Tuesday, immediately becomes evidence that the Clinton campaign rigged the primaries.

sorry but if people cant see how flawed that thought process is then there is little to discuss.

I can see it. I can also see why you feel it's impossible to discuss anything sensibly.

Dear me - what on earth is going on? The lunatics are taking over the asylum (world). I fear for the future of my kids and grandchildren. It's a world where the truth, compassion and decency stands no chance whatsoever up against liars, opportunists and rabble rousers.

In one of the emails it was discussed that they wanted an extreme type of Republican to be Clinton's opponent.
When it was finally revealed to be Trump I suspect that they probably thought that they'd lucked out and all their Christmases had come at once.

There's a reason why they exaggerated Trump and painted him as the devil incarnate. Because they'd already had the idea to fight a nasty campaign whoever the Republican candidate was going to be and make them out to be some sort of extremist nutcase.
They probably had a bible bashing god fearing Republican in mind.
Trump only became public enemy number one once he ran for president.

And before the campaigns had even begun in one of the emails the DNC were already considering who Hillary Clinton's vice president would be.
That may not be illegal but it certainly has a whiff of corrupt ethics about it.

And any collusion with the media where it appeared that there was quite an incestuous relationship between the DNC and some of the legacy media may not be literally 'fixing' the outcome, but it certainly would be using state media in a way we would normally condemn other countries for doing.

That's some cheap pub satire right there.

One, Obama is on the way out very soon, two Russians can hit back, hit harder, much harder than a terrorist organisation. What did anyone think the Americans response would be?

It's the Americans own fault having such flimsy election system.

It's got nothing to do with the US election system - flimsy or not. No one has suggested that the actual voting has been hacked. It's all about hacking (such as the Hilary Clinton emails) to influence the result.

Whatever proof they provide, if they ever do, it has to be compelling.
Because for one, they have to prove that Russia hacked them, and secondly they have to provide proof that there was an intent to interfere with the election.
And on a third point they'd also have to demonstrate how they've measured how much of an effect it had on the election if it did at all.

Because at the moment why should anyone trust what they've said so far when they originally claimed to the public that the emails were false or had been doctored?

who exactly do you think they need to provide proof to ?

the relevant people in congress have already been briefed, both republican and democrat, and have supported the sanctions

did anyone official ever claim the e-mails were false or doctored btw or is this just your imagination ?

iirc they refused to verify that the e-mails were accurate due to the methods that had been used to obtain and release them but i cant remember any official statement that they were false, merely that taken out of context they didn't paint the whole picture

happy to admit i am wrong if you can back that up tho